People & Places

Best Boondoggle St. Louis 2004 - The Lambert Airport expansion

It takes one heckuva boondoggle to bowl us over two years running. Let's see if we can figure this one out: At Lambert St. Louis International Airport this fiscal year, 3.7 million fewer passengers than last year boarded planes. American Airlines has cut its daily flight schedule to 207 from 417 in November 2003 and stripped away St. Louis' hub status. If you require more proof that Lambert is an aeronautical morgue, just check out Concourse D some afternoon. And yet the bulldozers grind on, prepping for the $1.1 billion runway expansion. Someday soon we'll have the best darn runway this side of the Mississippi. But for whom?